Comment on 30 years of adapting for hospital

Eric Evans, a registered nurse, checks the vital signs of 6-year-old patient Gabriela Galindo in the Inpatient Pediatric Unit at Lovelace Westside Hospital. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) The little hospital that could continues to move with the times by adding new services to meet patient needs. Lovelace Westside Hospital turns 30 years old this year. During its three-decade history, it has changed names multiple times, weathered huge changes in the health care industry and emerged as an 80-bed facility that offers a range of services, including emergency, pediatric, birthing and women’s services, and bariatric surgery. The bariatric program, started in 2009, is the first bariatric surgery center in New Mexico to be accredited as a Level 1 facility under the Bariatric Surgery Center Network Accreditation Program of the American College of Surgeons, said Duc Vuong, director of bariatrics for Lovelace Bariatrics. “We are really the pioneers for the state of New Mexico.